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Saturday, November 28, 2015

Netiquette IQ - National Listening Day (The Friday After Thanksgiving) An Essential Part Of Netiquette

A very important and often overlooked part of etiquette and Netiquette is listening. Without this practice, Netiquette is reduced to a far lesser impact with any type of communication.===============================================================

The 7 Secrets to Being a World Class Listener from
care2.com

By:
DianeMacEachern

Are you a lousy listener, or world
class? If you have any doubts, check yourself against the 7 traits of a
world-class listener identified below. Then put your listening skills to the
test on the National Day
of Listening the Friday after Thanksgiving Day and see what you
learn!

The National Day of Listening was
launched by the national oral history project StoryCorps in 2008, now widely
heard on public radio stations nationwide. It was designed as an alternative to
the shopping madness of “Black Friday” as a way to provide people of all
backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the
stories of their lives.

“We do this to remind one another of
our shared humanity, to strengthen and build the connections between people, to
teach the value of listening, and to weave into the fabric of our culture the
understanding that everyone’s story matters,” says StoryCorps on its
website.

To make recording the stories
easier, StoryCorps set up free recording booths in Atlanta, San Francisco,
Chicago, along with a mobile tour that travels the country. You can reserve a
time to record your story here.

But before you do, you need to be
prepared to listen to them. And as you probably know, not everyone is a good
listener. Some people ask questions they don’t really want the answers to.
Others ignore the answers altogether in order to aggrandize themselves.

Whether you record your stories on
the National Day of Listening or not, here are the secrets to becoming a better
listener no matter what story someone is telling.

1) Listen more than you
talk. As the saying goes, you have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Avoid
saying “I” or “me” a lot.

2) Use the answer to one
question as the basis for the next question you ask. Asking connected questions
will show that you’re honestly listening to the conversation.

3) Don’t judge the
answers or the questions. Your role as a listener is not to pass judgement on
what you hear. In fact, the more judgmental you are, the shorter the
conversation is likely to be!

4) Don’t compare
someone’s experiences to your own. Though you may think that the best way to
listen is to compare the person’s experiences to your own, this is far from the
truth. If the person is talking about dealing with a death in the family, you
can share some expression of understanding, but avoid saying, “That’s exactly
like how it was with me…” This can come off as offensive or insensitive, especially when you
compare something really serious to your own less-intense experiences.

5) Don’t try to help, at
last not right away. My daughter has trained me not to step in with a solution
when she tells me about a problem. In fact, she’ll say, “I wasn’t asking you to
fix it. I just wanted you to know about it.” If you do feel like you have to
give advice, make it neutral and not necessarily about what worked for you.

6) Show empathy.
Demonstrate you’re listening and that you care by acknowledging what the other
person is saying. Try “echoing” or simply rephrasing what your conversation
partner is saying.

7) Don’t interrupt in
the middle of a point. Be encouraging, but also be patient. Some questions are
hard to ask and even harder to answer.

Even if you’re not listening for the
National Day of Listening, Psychology Today says that being a good listener is part of
being an effective communicator, and effective communications is “one of the
keys to building resilience and maintaining balance in your life.”

“Listening is an active
process. It does not mean simply sitting silent and staring at
someone. To be effective in understanding another’s
perspective and helping them through a difficult time, such as a diagnosis of
cancer, you need to do things which show interest and genuine concern,” says
Psychology Today.

In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great
assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the
premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve,
Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge
Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon
follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my
profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

If you would like to listen
to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on
BlogtalkRadio
Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I
have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo. I am
also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and
Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson
Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a
contributor to numerous blogs and publications.

Lastly, I
am the founder and president of Tabula
Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network,
security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT
product information for virtually anyone.